


The End

by Multifandom_Freak_16



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-16
Updated: 2014-07-16
Packaged: 2018-02-09 03:28:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1967295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Multifandom_Freak_16/pseuds/Multifandom_Freak_16
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After Reichenbach and Sherlock's death, John spirals into a depression worse than any he's ever been through.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The End

**Author's Note:**

> *****FEELS WARNING!!!*****  
> Also, please don't be too harsh with the comments. Constructive criticism is welcome but nothing rude please, this is my first fanfic.
> 
> And I'm typing and posting from my phone so for some reason the spaces I put to indent paragraphs don't stay. I'll fix this next I'm on a computer.

He wasn't even hungry. But still John Watson stood there, cooking his meal. It was just some leftovers that Mrs. Hudson had left him on the counter just before his return to 221B Baker Street after a long week at the hospital. Not as a doctor this time, but as a patient. A week ago he had overstressed his already weak body and it gave out, causing him to fall in the shower. At some point between standing up and lying half in the shower and half on the bathroom floor he suffered a blow to his head, knocking him unconscious. Then he was waking up in a hospital bed, connected to feeding tubes and IVs as well as other tubes and monitors.  
It wasn't that John was intentionally starving himself. He just wasn't ever hungry. He didn't see the point in eating. He had no will left to live, leaving his life up to chance. Such as the chance that he could have bled out naked on his bathroom floor had Mrs. Hudson not been home downstairs to check on him then call for an ambulance when she saw him lying there. No, John had no care whether he lived or died anymore. He already felt dead in all ways but physically, so what difference did it make?  
Until tonight, anyways. John had done much observing and thinking in his hospital bed, and had come to the conclusion that he didn't want to go on. He was tired of tubes and hospitals, his friends' constant worries, his therapist's badgering. Tonight would be the end of all of their worries.  
He took his now hot dinner to his armchair, where he sat and forced it all down. More for Mrs. Hudson than for himself, hoping it would be some comfort to the fretting landlady that he had at least died on a full stomach of her wonderful cooking. He choked it down to the last bite before he got back up and went into the kitchen to put on tea while he washed up the dishes. He wanted to leave as little mess for dear Mrs. Hudson as possible. He had already cleaned and straightened up the rest of the flat, even Sherlock's room, which he hadn't been able to bring himself to even acknowledge until recently because it hurt too much. Lately, however, John had taken to sleeping in there. Not every night, just when he woke up in the middle of the night feeling even worse than usual. Spending every night in there would cause the scent of Sherlock to fade, replaced by John's. And John just couldn't have that because then he couldn't curl up under the covers at night and pretend as he goes to sleep that his best friend had been there not long ago and would return soon, no doubt after solving a case.  
The kettle whistled just after John had finished the dishes, which mainly consisted of mugs. Tea was usually the only thing in his stomach. He made his tea then returned to his chair to drink it, his thoughts a blank slate while staring at the gun sitting on the table. He lounged there, sipping and staring until his mug was empty. Then he picked up the gun and put it in his back pocket on his way to the kitchen, where he washed his mug then dried it and put it away with the other dishes. He jotted out a note for Mrs. Hudson and left it with some money by her empty dish on the counter. With a look around he confirmed that all was tidy and neat before heading for the hallway. First he stopped in the bathroom, remembering all the times Sherlock would unabashedly burst in while he was showering or whatnot with a new case or a breakthrough. It made him smile. Then John shut the door and moved on to his room, where he changed into his favorite jumper and most comfortable trousers, then straightened up and shut the door behind him. Finally his hand rested on the knob of Sherlock's door. The pistol suddenly felt quite heavy in his other hand. He turned the knob and went in, shutting the door behind him.  
John lifted the covers and crawled under them, curling up in Sherlock's bed as he had at least a dozen times. He reached for the purple shirt lying beside him and hugged it close to him as he cried. It was Sherlock's favorite shirt, and was the closest that John would get to hugging him ever again. It even still smelled of him. John breathed the smell in deep, the pain fresh once more, his heart physically aching. He had heard of dying from a broken heart but had never believed it until he had a patient come in the emergency room late one night with her husband, both badly wounded from a nearby car crash. Her husband died in the night. When she found out the next morning, she cried and cried until she suddenly seemed to be suffering a heart attack, then died minutes later. The stress of the pain had caused her heart strings to snap and break, causing her heart to collapse. The poor woman literally died of a broken heart. John sometimes wondered how he hadn't died from the pain himself. He sure felt like he had often, even when the pain was at its dullest.  
Of course Sherlock wasn't his husband, but he was his best friend. He was the one who had saved him before, the one who gave meaning back to his shallow existence in some ways, just as John had given meaning to Sherlock's life in other ways. But now Sherlock was gone, and with him all meaning in living. John had died when Sherlock died. Now his shell of a body would join the rest of him.  
"I'm coming, Sherlock."  
John put the gun in his mouth. He squeezed the shirt and took a deep breath, using his last breath to inhale as much of his best friend's scent as he could. While inhaling, John pulled the trigger.

It was late when Mrs. Hudson heard it. She was asleep when quite a loud bang woke her. She sat up with a frightened shout, then sat silently waiting for any other noises. A minute creeped by, then another, and another. Silence. She got out of bed, shakily throwing on a robe and nudging her feet into her slippers. It sounded like... a gunshot? On Baker Street? But there hadn't been a single one since Sherlock last shot at her wall.  
"Oh, dear," muttered Mrs. Hudson as she blindly made her way to her telephone. She feared an intruder upstairs, and was terribly frightened for John. She phoned Lestrade's mobile, which he had given her the last time there was a break in.  
"Mrs. Hudson, do you realize how late it is?" his groggy voice answered, obviously having been asleep and very annoyed at being woke up so late after such a day he had, but he couldn't be harsh with the sweet landlady.  
"Greg, dear, there's been a noise, it sounded like a gunshot!" Mrs. Hudson told him quietly. "I'm afraid there might have been a break in upstairs." The opposite end of the line was quiet. Then:  
"Mrs. Hudson, get outside as quick and quiet as you can, I'm pulling on my shoes then I'll be over." The landlady nodded, then hung up and scuttled outside quietly. Meanwhile, Lestrade was on his mobile as he strode to his car.

 

"If Parliament is not on fire, Greg Lestrade, then you had better have a very good reason for phoning me at this time," Mycroft's voice slurred with underlying rage on the other end.  
"It's John." Lestrade started his car. "Mrs. Hudson thinks it was an intruder but I'm sure both you and I know better."  
"At the flat?" Mycroft sounded much more awake now.  
"Yes."  
"Let me get dressed. We'll be there."  
"We? We who-" 

Mycroft had already hung up. He got out of his bed and dressed as quickly as a man in full suit and tie could. Then he dialed the number.  
"Yes, sir?" came quickly from the other end.  
"Get him out of there. Get him to 221B Baker Street, NOW." Mycroft hailed a cab, having no time to wake his chauffeur.  
"But, sir, he isn't finished here," his man responded.  
"Then you finish, or we can bust him BACK in. Either way, he is needed here. I expect him to be present within the hour!"  
"...Yes, sir." 

Joe McCanon hung up. Then he set to work, calling for a chopper and backup in case of emergency. Then he headed quickly and quietly to the cell. He opened the door as quietly as he could, shutting it only most of the way.  
"Back again?" The prisoner looked up. He was still naked in the freezing cement cell, his ankles chained to the floor and his arms chained from the ceiling, more wounds blemishing his skin than what there had been last Joe had seen him. "Ah. You're not Masnikov."  
"No, I'm not, sir. I'm also an inside for Mr. Holmes. I am to get you out and to 221B Baker Street. Mr. Holmes says you are needed," Joe responded, beginning to unlock the shackles quietly. The prisoner seemed to tense up. The news obviously struck a nerve in him, though what part of the news Joe could not say. Both men were swift and silent about the escape, raising no alarm. Joe led the dirty, wounded prisoner out of the compound and to the forest nearby where the chopper waited. 

There was a group assembled outside of 221B Baker Street by the time the car pulled up. Mrs. Hudson in her robe and slippers, Lestrade with Donovan (having the good sense to bring someone less irritating instead of calling for Anderson), Mycroft in his full suit as always, and Molly, who was keeping Mrs. Hudson calm. But-  
"Where is John?" The first thing Sherlock Holmes asked as soon as he stepped out of the car, newly bathed, groomed, and clothed, as though he had just left the flat minutes ago. Silence answered him. Silence and sad eyes. His stomach dropped. He threw open the door and flew up the steps.  
"John?" Sherlock called. No response. Panic rose in him. "JOHN?" He began tearing the flat apart, checking anywhere in the sitting room that John could fit. He refused to believe. He tore through the kitchen, the bathroom, the hall closets, John's entire room, the fire escapes, all the while shouting at the top of his lungs, "JOHN! JOHN!!" He stood in the wreck of John's room, the mess around him a blur through the tears of fear welling up in his eyes. His own room was the only place left. He rushed to it, but momentarily froze with his hand on the doorknob. The metal was colder than it should have been. An awful feeling knotted up inside of Sherlock as he opened the door.  
John was lying in his bed, holding his favorite shirt. "John-" Sherlock stopped. John used to wake whenever he heard Sherlock shambling through the flat in the morning, he certainly would've woke up at all of his yelling alone. Sherlock pulled the cord on the bedside lamp, then froze for the second time in as many minutes. John lie still- too still. With a gun in his other hand. He knew. All along, since that man had told him he was needed here, he knew it was this. He had denied it fiercely until the moment he put out a hand to take John's pulse. His skin was cold and his pulse was gone. He turned around and shut the door with a shaking hand. Blood and brains splattered the wall behind the door and on the floor. It hit home when he turned around and looked down at John Watson.  
His best friend was dead, by his own hand. Sherlock was paralyzed by the feeling of his usually cold and detached heart shattering. Tears streamed down his face. All he had done and been through over the last two years had been for his other friends, but mostly for John. The only thought that had kept him sane had been of returning to John. He had come so close- by that time the next week he would've been back to sipping tea in his armchair at 221B with John.  
His whole world fell apart in that moment. He lay down on his bed next to John, clutching his body while he broke down and verbally attacked anyone who tried to enter the flat (except for Mrs. Hudson, he merely yelled a "get out" at her.) He finally reached up and touched the exit wound at the back of John's head. The area was soaked in blood. Sherlock sobbed even harder, squeezing the corpse of his best friend.  
"This is all my fault, John," he muttered. He cried so hard and for so long that he vomited several times in the waste bin beside his bed, some of those times caused by the overwhelming guilt and others by the pain. This man had brought previously unknown happiness to his life, cured him of his loneliness, and now he lay dead despite Sherlock's attempt to protect him. And it was his fault. His, Sherlock Holmes', fault that his best friend lay dead in his arms.  
The thought of living his life without his best friend was the most painful thing to have ever gone through his head. Not only that, but he would live his life out knowing how horribly he had failed his best friend. He would carry the guilt of John Watson's death until his own, as Atlas held up the sky. The only difference was that Sherlock wasn't strong enough to hold that weight without letting it crush him. Already it was overwhelming him. The pain, the guilt, the loss, it was too much for him. He held John's body tightly, prying the gun out of his hand and putting it to his temple.  
"Sherlock, NO!" It echoed from nowhere as Sherlock Holmes pulled the trigger and fell over, his corpse still clinging to John's. Feet raced up the stairs and the door of the flat burst open. One by one they came into the room. First Lestrade, who took in the sight before him with his head between his hands. Then Donovan, who seemed more shocked than anything. Then Mrs. Hudson and Molly, who had to be led away by Donovan as they started to cry loudly. Finally Mycroft strode in, then froze with his eyes glued to the face of his little brother's corpse. His face gave away nothing while his eyes became waterfalls of tears. 

A fist met his cheekbone, knocking Sherlock back. "I could bloody kill you right now, Sherlock Holmes." More blows came, John Watson beat Sherlock down to the floor, calling him any name he could think of. Sherlock let his friend abuse him without a word, doing nothing more than cry. He deserved so much worse than this. John ceased after quite awhile.  
"Are those... tears?" he asked, so taken aback that he forgot his anger for the moment. Sherlock only nodded.  
"Keep going, then. I deserve your worst after what I've caused, John," he responded quietly.  
"You were alive this whole time," John stated. "You were alive and I thought you were dead. And you just let me keep believing that."  
"It had to be like that, John. You wouldn't be safe if you didn't believe that I was absolutely dead," he answered.  
"What are you on about?" his friend demanded. Sherlock sat up.  
"Moriarty had snipers on you that day, John. You and the others. If I didn't jump, he would give the order to shoot. So I had to die to keep you safe, especially while I was gone dismantling Moriarty's web string by string. I was to take the system down and only then would it be safe for me to come back," he explained. He looked at John and continued. "But I was stupid. I should have had an eye kept on you, to make sure you would be okay. I should have worked faster and harder and been home sooner. I should have made it all work somehow instead of assuming you would be okay because you're stronger than I am. I tried to save you but in the end it was still my fault that you died, John. It was my fault you suffered. I finally found another human being that I would die to protect and I failed. And no amount of "I'm sorry" will ever make it better, but I do want you to know that words cannot describe how sorry I am, John Watson, nor can words describe the guilt and pain I feel at all you've been through because of me. So please, continue to beat me. I deserve your worst..."  
"You were alive this whole time.. then you come back and shoot yourself," John said after a long moment of silence.  
"I couldn't, John. I couldn't live with the pain and the guilt and the loss, and I couldn't return to the life I led before you came into it, nor could I live any life without you, my best friend," Sherlock answered softly. Both men were silent for awhile, watching Lestrade and Mycroft carry their bodies out carefully and the lab techs take samples and evidence.  
"I left a note for Mrs. Hudson. I told her to make sure I was buried beside you." John finally broke the silence. Sherlock nodded. His casket would likely be dug up and thrown away, a new one chosen for the same spot. "But right now I don't even want to be near you, Sherlock Holmes," he added, standing up. That hit Sherlock harder than any punch, though he had expected it. John went on:  
"I can't be around you right now because I understand why, but I'm still just too angry and upset to forgive you right now." He walked to the door, pausing before shutting it behind him. "I will be in my room. Don't come up those stairs unless it's an emergency. If you see me down here, don't even acknowledge me. Ignore my existence until further notice. When I am ready to deal with you, Sherlock, I will. But don't expect it any time soon." And with that John pulled the door shut, leaving Sherlock to sob alone on his bedroom floor.

**Author's Note:**

> Joe McCanon is obviously an entirely fictional character of my own making, as is the Masnikov fellow Sherlock mentions.


End file.
